


to be broken

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Body Horror, Dark Magic, Disreality, Half-Elves, Horror, M/M, Magic, Romance, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25877452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: The problem with being not an elf, not a human, not a god is that all of it bleeds out into you, and you can’t make yourself one person. Sometimes that bleeds out of you so much that you can’t make one world.
Relationships: Elrohir/Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	to be broken

The problem with being not an elf, not a human, not a god is that all of it bleeds out into you, and you can’t make yourself one person. Sometimes that bleeds out of you so much that you can’t make one world.

Elrohir breathes slowly because the world isn’t real, and he’s trying to make it real again. But the cliffs to his left flicker in and out of being there. They are there, strong and dark, and then gone, and the space they leave is white. 

Elrohir takes another deep breath, counts to four. He holds it, counts to four. He releases it, counts to four. 

The cliffs are gone again. The grass in front of him spins even though there is no wind. A darkness gathers on his vision until the world is gone beneath a grey veil and then it lifts, and all the colours are too bright. 

Elrohir lifts his hand. His fingers tremble. The grey mist passes over them. The sun is bright. He is losing the world. He is losing himself. 

‘Ro?’ 

Elrohir turns. Legolas stands staring and from the terror in his eyes, Elrohir knows half his face is gone. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. His hair lifts. There is still no wind. 

‘What can I do?’ Legolas asks. 

Elrohir turns from him. He watches the cliffs disappear again. He doesn’t know. 

He wishes he could pull the world back together. He wishes he could stitch together all the different species inside of him so that they wouldn’t fight. But he has a spirit inside of him that wasn’t made to rest in this world, and he has a spirit inside of him that is bound to the world, and he has a spirit in him that could create a world. So how can he be whole? 

‘You should go,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to see me like this.’ 

His fingers elongate. He can see a fire glowing beneath his skin. He feels stretched. He lifts his too long hand to his face and touches too many eyes. 

‘You don’t want to see me.’ 

This is the problem. He’s a freak. There was no God who had prepared for the unions that created him. And the parts of him that make him all together don’t always know how to live with one another, and so he falls apart like this. And no one wants to see it. No one understands. 

‘I’ll go,’ Legolas says. ‘If you want me to. But I can stay. I’m not scared of you.’ 

Elrohir watches a black pool appear on his palm and dark water spill over between his fingers. It dissolves into a mist just above the ground. 

‘Aren’t you?’ he says. 

‘No.’ 

Elrohir turns back to him. Seven eyes run down the right side of his face. The left is gone. His hair flies like a storm around his head. Wings grow on his back, wide with wet feathers. 

Legolas steps towards him. His eyes are wide, but he doesn’t tremble. 

‘I’m not scared,’ he says. ‘You aren’t a monster.’ 

Elrohir thinks he might be a monster. A demon. An abomination of nature. He was never supposed to have existed, and all of the pain of the separations, of his spirit destroying the world, destroying the body it cannot be contained to, is a punishment for the sin of existing. 

He’s heard people whisper. 

I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something wrong with them. They are strange. They are terrifying. They are demons. They are monsters. They are shadows. Are you sure they’re not ghosts? One moment there and the next gone. They appear from nothing. They don’t feel real. They make you tired. You have to be careful. They are bewitching. They are dangerous. They are beautiful. But don’t go alone into the woods with them. 

Legolas stands alone in the woods with him. Elrohir’s wings unfurl. Legolas does not run. 

Elrohir’s vision blurs. Tears fall from all seven of his eyes. He holds his hand out, and Legolas takes it without hesitation. 

Elrohir holds his hand. It feels warm and real. He’s never held anyone’s hand beside those of his immediate family when he’s like this. But Legolas is an elf, and he doesn’t run. 

‘I love you,’ Legolas says. 

Elrohir bends his head. His face shifts again. Two eyes, but too large now. His hair jumps around his face. 

‘I love you,’ he says. His fingers shift back to the right size. His wings grow wider. He could fly now. He looks up at Legolas. At Legolas, who is still there. 

‘I wish,’ he says, ‘it was easier to love me.’ 

Legolas’s face fills with anguish. 

‘It’s not hard!’ he cries. ‘Please do not think so!’ 

He throws his arms around Elrohir, even if Elrohir has four arms and four wings and four eyes beneath hair that will not be still.

Legolas keeps his arms around him. He is steady and whole, and he does not change, and Elrohir doesn’t have to fall alone this time. He presses his face to Legolas’s shoulder. He closes six eyes (two will not close.) 

‘Do not be afraid,’ he whispers. 

‘I’m not.’ 

Elrohir holds onto him. He wishes he hadn’t been created just to be torn to pieces. But he’s made of too many pieces, so he can’t stop it. 

‘I wish that Eru would love me,’ he says. 

Legolas shakes his head against Elrohir’s head. 

‘He doesn’t,’ Elrohir says. ‘He doesn’t love us.’ 

Legolas breathes out. He touches Elrohir’s moving hair. He rests his hand on it though it won’t rest. Somehow he keeps his hand steady on Elrohir’s changing head. 

‘But I do,’ he says. ‘So that doesn’t matter. Because I do. Because I do.’ 

Legolas’s hair does not change. He does not dissolve into nothing. He cradles Elrohir, and he’s warm, and he might be the only thing real, but he is real, so it counts. He is not afraid.


End file.
